Bute MSP hits out at mobile firms’ ‘contempt’

Argyll and Bute MSP, Michael Russell, has criticised two UK mobile phone providers for providing their rural customers with a poor service.

Karen Keith

An Argyll and Bute MSP has said rural customers of UK mobile phone providers are being ‘repeatedly let down’.

Michael Russell spoke out on Twitter after Vodafone customers on Bute endured a lengthy spell without service in Rothesay, with the MSP stating: “lots of complaints about @VodafoneUK as signal still off after 3 days shows contempt for customers.”

Mr Russell tweeted both Vodafone and O2 saying: “As rural MSP know that your rural customers repeatedly let down by you. Investment not touching them - time you delivered”, and received the following response from O2: “We are doing all we can to make things better, this will improve soon as we plan to deliver 4G to 98% of the population by 2015”.

In response to Mr Russell’s requests for information on the lack of service on Bute, Vodafone responded with: “We’re unable to give fault specific details or timescales. More info on our network FAQ’s”.

Mr Russell replied: “Link says “most problems solved before u know it” but Rothesay (pop 5000) on 4th day off. When will they know solution?”, but received no response from Vodafone.

Vodafone offered an apology to Bute customers on Friday, stating: “We’re sorry some of our customers on the Isle of Bute have been experiencing signal problems yesterday and today.

“This was a result of some improvement work we have been carrying out. Our engineers are working on the issue now and we hope to get the site up and running as soon as possible.”

At the time of writing, a service status notice on Vodafone’s website stated: “We’re trying to fix a network issue which might be affecting call coverage. There are some challenging circumstances - so it’s taking us longer than usual to get to the bottom of things.